Not long ago, I read a suggestion that went something like “buying an expired domain and reselling it for a profit is like stealing, isn’t it?”
The concern was that if someone forgot to renew a domain, and you scoop it up for resale, then you’re taking advantage of a memory lapse on the part of an innocent website owner.
But let’s think about how domain registrars work, and we’ll see that’s rarely, if ever, the case.
To begin with, domain buyers have the option to put important domains on auto-renew. And if it doesn’t work because of an expired credit card, there are safeguards in place.
Domain owners get multiple notices before expiration, and after that, there’s a lengthy “redemption” period, so they have a chance to re-acquire the domain. If they don’t respond and take advantage of the opportunity, then it’s dropped and made publicly available.
With all the opportunities and safeguards, it’s safe to assume that most previous owners of expired domains just didn’t want them anymore.
Here’s an example: suppose that ten or fifteen years ago, I purchased DougsDogs.com and was happily running a thriving fancy gourmet hot dog café.
That’s hard work, and maybe now I’m retiring—glad it was a good run, but I’m done with it now. If I don’t have a buyer for the business (and the domain), I close up shop and ignore the registrar’s reminders.
Meanwhile, another Doug, far away, opened his business and got a longer domain—Dougshotdogemporium.com or some such, because DougsDogs.com was taken. If a domainer took a chance on the domain and went to the trouble to find other hot dog eateries owned by the other Doug, would Doug snap it up when it was offered? Heck yes.
I, the original owner, lose nothing. The domainer makes a well-deserved profit, and my namesake gets a snappier and more easily remembered domain.
And so could you. If you’re in search of a great way to supplement your income with a spare time gig, then domaining just might be for you.
